Saturday, 30 November 2013

What An Amazing Dam. Wait… What’s That? Are
Those…? No Way!

This somewhat ordinary dam in a National Park in Northern Italy is hiding something. Can you see what it is?

How about now? No? Then keep scrolling down.

WAIT WHAT! ARE THOSE GOATS!?

They are indeed goats, death-defying goats that simply don’t give a dam.

Why hi there little buddy.

November 29, 2013

This
amazing herd of alpine ibexes live near a dam in the Gran Paradiso National
Park in Northern Italy and have recently started climbing the brick dam much to
the amazement of locals. Park officials quickly figured out that they were in
fact grazing, licking the old stones for their salts and minerals.

Guess
that beats my theory, that one of them just saw a spider down below.

Friday, 29 November 2013

"I fully agree with this article and have practiced this
for years especially the years I’ve been chronically fatigued which is a
different kettle of fish!

What you will find
is; if you put your alarm on for 20 minutes that in a week or so you will be
able to just lie down, nap and wake up in 20 minutes without the alarm. I understand
that lorry drivers are adept at setting a nap time. Apparently my granny used
to say that she’d just have 10 minutes in her rocking chair and she always woke
up in 10 minutes time.

Similarly, if you time yourself 20-30 minutes and then stand
up from your studies with an oxygenating stretch being beneficial before going back to
your work. You will find that you do not lose concentration; you do not lose the
flow but that you can maintain a high level of work for as long as you want or
need to.
You might wish to scroll down and check out my article Grounding in the Centre of your Space to find more about being able to go to sleep at night." M'reen

The art of
resting fully

byYan

I didn’t sleep enough last night. But I have a ninja
trick to quickly cor­rect this:

I prac­tice the art of rest­ing fully. Want to know what
it is?

When I say that I didn’t sleep enough, I mean just that —
I didn’t “have insom­nia”. I just went to bed too late, at around mid­night.
Then I was cold, and my body couldn’t warm up while lying under the sheets.
Feel­ing cold, I couldn’t fall asleep. After 45 min­utes of feel­ing cold
I got up and took a warm shower. Then I went back to bed and fell asleep
promptly — until my alarm rose me up at 6:45.

Sleep­ing six hours is not enough for me to feel fully
rested (I rather need 7.5/8 hours). So I felt slightly grumpy, a lit­tle
fatigued, and def­i­nitely unin­spired by what I had put on my to-​​do list.

Feel­ing the blah

That gave me a lit­tle taste of the ordeal most peo­ple
who come to Sleep­Tracks expe­ri­ence — and a reminder of what I used to expe­ri­ence
in a much more pro­nounced way a decade ago, when I was label­ing myself as an
insomniac. Any­way, after about an hour of respond­ing to SleepTracks’s clients
and a few other tasks, I started to feel the urge to procrastinate. That’s what
hap­pens when we are under-​​rested and sleep-​​deprived, right? We eas­ily crum­ble under the slight­est pres­sure.
We feel eas­ily over­whelmed. We can’t con­cen­trate. So we start to pro­cras­ti­nate.
Or we get back to an old habit: using worry as a project instead of work­ing
on what­ever is in front of us. Blah.

What is the ninja
trick then?

In three words: tak­ing a nap. I actu­ally took
three naps that day. Yes, three. Now please hear me: most days I don’t nap at
all. Some­times I’ll nap once in the after­noon. But yes­ter­day I lis­tened to
my needs and rested three times. Did I waste my whole day doing that?
Hardly. First nap lasted 20 minutes.

Sec­ond nap lasted about 15 min­utes
— because I fell asleep and then woke up think­ing that the alarm had already
rang. The last one, spent on the couch, lasted for about 30 minutes.

Yes, I was overindulging. And doing so with­out the
slight­est bit of self-​​judgment. With­out telling myself
that I “should be” doing this or that instead. In fact, when I lied on the
couch I told myself “I’m going to stay there until I actu­ally want to
get up and do something”. It felt great, because I actu­ally needed it.

I know
because I felt so much clearer and ener­getic and moti­vated after each one of
those naps. Instead of sit­ting stu­pid and con­fused in front of my com­puter,
I was able each time to be pro­duc­tive and inspired again.

Rest fully when you
need to

Rest­ing fully when you need to is the best act of self-​​love you can pro­vide your­self. And nobody else but you can
give your­self this pre­cious gift. Rest­ing is more impor­tant to
your over­all health than nutri­tion. More impor­tant than phys­i­cal activ­ity.
More impor­tant than any­thing else.

Let me repeat that and be obnox­ious about it: When you need it, phys­i­cal rest is more
impor­tant to your over­all health than nutri­tion. More impor­tant than phys­i­cal
activ­ity. More impor­tant than any­thing else.

Most peo­ple have for­got­ten that they even have the pos­si­bil­ity
of lis­ten­ing to that need and to fill it. They take cof­fee, choco­late, load
up on carbs instead, or stim­u­late them­selves with the news, with fran­tic
activ­ity… or with worry. All of these are crappy sub­sti­tutes to the
real deal: rest. Your need for rest won’t nec­es­sar­ily come from lack of
sleep. It can man­i­fest itself after hard phys­i­cal exer­tion, demand­ing con­cen­tra­tion
at work, or an exhaust­ing rela­tion­ship con­flict — any­thing that taxes your
energy sys­tem more than usual. In any case, hon­or­ing this need will
make a big dif­fer­ence in your day. And even help you turn your back to insom­nia
(more on that later).

Sim­ple nap­ping
instructions

1Don’t make it com­pli­cated. And
don’t focus on falling asleep. Just have the inten­tion to “rest” for 20 min­utes
or so. Peo­ple will say “I can’t sleep dur­ing the day” as a jus­ti­fi­ca­tion
for why they won’t lie down even though they are clearly exhausted — but the
goal is NOT to fall alseep, but sim­ply to answer your body/mind’s need to rest
for a moment. If that is your inten­tion, then your nap will always be a
success. Call it “a lit­tle quiet time” if you don’t want to call it a nap
because you’d feel lazy

2Just lie down on your bed (keep
your clothes on, this is a quickie, remem­ber) or on your couch. Under your
desk, or over. Any­where, really. Put a sleep mask on.

3Set some timer and let go for
20–30 min­utes. Not more. Even if it takes you 15 min­utes to
doze off.

4Use Power Nap, the audio ses­sion
cre­ated specif­i­cally for that in the Sleep­Tracks Sleep Opti­miza­tion Pro­gram.
The back­ground sounds will make the world around you fade out, and the brain­wave
entrain­ment will help you to let go and guide you to sleep. I’ve used
Power Nap for a few years reli­giously — but now I’m so used to nap­ping when I
need to that I just put on my sleep mask and off I go. Peo­ple around me
are always sur­prised to see me get back from a nap so quickly with a spring in
my legs. “Already?” they say. “Did you sleep?” “Yes, of course
I did. »

And you can too. It’s just a mat­ter of practice.

When to do it (and
when not)

Sim­ple, again: do it when you feel the need to rest (and
when you can get away with it). But will nap­ping ruin your next night’s
sleep? Some sleep experts warn you not to take naps if you strug­gle with
sleep. They say it will make your insom­nia worse. I say on the contrary. Use
those short naps as train­ingto
get good at let­ting go quickly and fall asleep when­ever you lie down. Even
if you don’t sleep you’ll get the ben­e­fit of rest­ing and rejuvenating. Just
don’t do it after din­ner at night in order to avoid dis­rupt­ing your night ­time sleep.
DON’T nap for an hour in front of the TV after dinner!

A good rem­edy against
the fear of not sleeping

Nap­ping reg­u­larly will also lessen the fear of not
sleep­ing you may be har­bor­ing right now. Know­ing you can always take a
nap (or, like me, a few ones) if the need arises and wake up refreshed will
lower the pres­sure you put your­self under when night­ time comes. As far
as I’m con­cerned, next time I don’t sleep enough I’ll just resort to my
favorite rest­ing trick, and I’ll go for a short nap. Even if you think I’m a
lazy bum. (btw, I’m a lazy bum only when I decide to. Next week I’ll be
locked at home on a writ­ing retreat, attempt­ing to write the full draft of a
book in one six-​​day burst. It will be
intense! I might nap a few times along the way.)

Wednesday, 27 November 2013

The bad news is there is no complete cure for
self-doubt. “That’s not peppy,” you’re probably thinking. Well, here’s the good
news: you are not alone—it is experienced by even the best writers out
there—and it is a feeling that can be both mastered and overcome. I’m sure if you are in
the throes of a hearty dose of it, you’re still thinking that’s of little
comfort (and possibly something four-lettered), but the suggestions below will
help you find your way out of the fog.

1. Be selfish, write
for yourself

On many occasions,
perhaps not just in our writing, we become too concerned with what other people
think. That concern can turn to fear: “What if I make a fool of myself?” And
that fear stops us in our tracks. So, in answer to this, I say don’t write
worrying about how someone else will react to your work. Write for yourself.Youthink this story is important and you think
it’s interesting. Set it down for yourself because it’s a story you want to
follow. Remember that early on
in the writing process, it is exploratory—you are on an adventure of discovery
for yourself and it doesn’t matter what someone else may or may not think. Hearing someone else’s
opinion comes later, when sending it to aneditor.By then, hopefully, you will have found your
writing rhythm, got it all down and it will simply be a case of tweaking and
tightening.

2. Don’t compare
yourself to others

One of my favourite
authors is Dodi Smith. Her turn of phrase, her ability to show, not tell and
the humour she unassumingly slips into her prose is just how I want to write.
Yet when I read back over some of my own drafts I am bitterly disappointed. Yes, appreciate
someone else’s work and learn from them, but do not expect to be them. And why
should you? You view the world through different eyes, have formed your
opinions through different experiences and that will come out in your
storytelling. Become your own favourite author by learning the craft and honing
it to your own preferences. Also, look at it from
this angle: think about the books, films and programs you admire and love, even
about the friends you enjoy spending time with. You have good taste, right? So
if you are enjoying spending time with the characters in your story as much as
you enjoy spending time with, say, Mal fromFirefly, the chances are someone else is going to
enjoy spending time with your character as well.

3. Exercise that
muscle and give yourself time to grow stronger

I truly believe
writing is like a muscle—you have it within you, but to really use it
effectively you need to exercise that muscle, tone it and teach it technique. You might be glancing
down at the first paragraph you have written with a feeling of “what is this
drivel?” I’m sorry to say that, if this is your first outing as a writer, you
will not be writing prose worthy of critics’ praise, but the important thing to
note is that this is perfectly okay. Keep working at it,
attacking the story from a different angle, writing a page or two in iambic
pentameter—experiment and enjoy experimenting. All of
it will help build strength in that muscle and help you find the style that you
like, that expresses your voice best.

4. Literally work
through it

Perhaps the self-doubt
has got a firm grip on you and it’s been days since you wrote. Well—and this
will take some discipline—just pick up that pen, turn on that computer, and
start writing again. Given your frame of mind, it may well not be of the
highest standard, but keep going! Try to tune out those
negative thoughts by turning up the volume of the story. In my experience,
through the ruckus of self-doubt can come some of your best work. A long time ago, in a
galaxy far, far away, I submitted two pieces to the university short story
magazine. One I had spent many hours on, caught up in the magic of an amazing
true story, trying my utmost to evoke the feeling through lyrical prose; the
other I had written with as much sarcasm I could muster when overcome with
writer’s block. Which do you think was
accepted for publishing? The latter. I remember snorting, in a most unladylike
fashion, when I received the letter of acceptance. Perhaps it was because
I wasn’t holding myself back and trying to be “clever” with the words I used? I
had turned on the computer and filled the page. So try it. And apply sarcasm
liberally—it works wonders.

5. Find a collaborator

I suggest this with a
little hesitation. My grandmother, the best storyteller I have known (okay, so
I might be a little biased), advised me never to tell anyone a story until I
had finished writing it. If you tell someone, she said, it’s no longer
exciting, you yourself become bored, you lose interest and you stop writing. However, you may well
be too judgmental and too self-deprecating to properly assess your work. So,
find someone you trust, someone you know will give you an honest opinion, and
ask them to readan excerptof your story. Be prepared for the
feedback. Sometimes the criticisms sound louder than the compliments and they
may be uncomfortable to hear, but write them all down and then put on your
explorer’s hat again (mine’s a solar topee)—all right, so this route led to a
pit of wooden stakes, but this way was tarred… Be proud of what’s
worked and approach what hasn’t worked with the mind-set of “how can I fix
this”.

6. Use it to your
advantage

I know it’s certainly
easier said than done, but seize that self-doubt by the scruff of the neck and
say “I’m going to make you workforme.” Don’t allow the
feeling to defeat you. Channel it into something constructive by becoming your
own shrink and analysing the problem: what is it exactly that you are
doubting—the story or your ability to write it? When you have the
answer to that, scroll back to the top of this article and look at my
suggestions again. The very fact that you
are reading this, Googling ways to overcome the self-doubt and continue
writing, says there is a story in you trying to get out. You already are a
storyteller. Hit the mute button on those nagging doubts and set it down.

Monday, 25 November 2013

People who regularly eat nuts appear to live longer,
according to the largest study of its kind.

The findings, published in the New England Journal of
Medicine, suggested the greatest benefit was in those munching on a daily
portion.

The US team said nut eaters were likely to also have
healthy lifestyles, but the nuts themselves were also contributing to their
longer lifespan.

The British Heart Foundation said more research was
needed to prove the link

The study followed nearly 120,000 people for 30 years.
The more regularly people consumed nuts, the less likely they were to die
during the study.

People eating nuts once a week were 11% less likely to
have died during the study than those who never ate nuts.

Up to four portions was linked to a 13% reduction in
deaths and a daily handful of nuts cut the death rate during the study by 20%.

Lead researcher Dr Charles Fuchs, from the Dana-Farber
Cancer Institute and Brigham and Women's Hospital, said: "The most obvious
benefit was a reduction of 29% in deaths from heart disease, but we also saw a
significant reduction - 11% - in the risk of dying from cancer."

Eating nuts was linked to a healthier lifestyle -
including being less likely to smoke or be overweight and more likely to
exercise.

This was accounted for during the study, for example to
eliminate the impact of smoking on cancer rates.

The researchers acknowledge that this process could not
completely account for all of the differences between those regularly eating
nuts and those not.

However, they said it was "unlikely" to change
the results.

They suggest nuts are lowering cholesterol, inflammation
and insulin resistance.

Victoria Taylor, senior dietician at the British Heart
Foundation, said: "This study shows an association between regularly
eating a small handful of nuts and a lower risk of death from coronary heart
disease.

"While this is an interesting link, we need further
research to confirm if it's the nuts that protect heart health, or other
aspects of people's lifestyle.

"Nuts contain unsaturated fats, protein and a range
of vitamins and minerals and make a good swap for snacks like chocolate bars,
cakes and biscuits.

Sunday, 24 November 2013

I took the photograph of this beautiful celandine, though
I do have a gardening friend who regards them as the enemy – spoil sport.

I learned this when I lived in Spain many years ago and
used it today when I realised that my last

few months of repetitive sneezing was a link with my
father.

I’ve used this in my home; car; cathedral; garden; during
a conference or whenever I’ve needed

to alter the energy around and within me.

I shall expand on its uses in future blogs as this two
minute technique is limited only by your imagination.

You might want to work on a different aspect of your
energy and so would change my intention

of ‘I’m safe’ to ‘I relax into sleep’ or ‘I release this
headache’ or ‘I release the energy linking me

with my father in this way’ etc.

Looking at these three intentions:

‘I’m safe’, of course you are, I don’t see a sabre tooth
tiger in the vicinity

and for most people this is a neutral situation.

‘I relax into sleep’. This doesn’t challenge any beliefs.

If you said, ‘I am going to sleep’, then that is entirely
different for two reasons as you know you jolly well can’t get to sleep and
your subconscious mind always takes the easy way out and decides that to go to
sleep next week will do fine. So no ‘ings’!

‘I release this headache’. Firstly you must be absolutely
sure that this is not the first signs

of something that needs a doctor’s attention; secondly, if you have a headache or migraine

every weekend rather than simply releasing it why not
deal with the stress that is causing it?

‘I release this particular energy linking me with my
father’. Is this an appropriate intention for me;

and are any of the other intentions you might use appropriate?
Well find the blog: www.innermindreading.wordpress.com How Do I Know If I Have A Problem And How
Big It Is?

As that will tell you how to
do this.

Even though I demonstrate this to clients, people create
their own way of doing this and it works.

They then ask me to teach them the
original version and I ask why as it is working perfectly for them?

One lady
insisted that she couldn’t do it so she just sort of thought and it worked.

Another lady told me that she practised so much on the
bus that she felt that she could feel

the texture of the surfaces she ‘touched’.

Try, experience and share your experience.

If appropriate close your eyes and imagine a little
boomerang or bird or whatever pleases you moving

from your heart or area of
discomfort to the points I shall describe and back into your being.

On the
return to your centre say, or think, with a DEEP voice, “I feel safe.”

Use a deep voice as this helps you to relax.

With my mind’s eye I travel to the wall in front of me,
and having touched the wall in front of me

I return DEEP within myself and I feel safe.

With my mind’s eye I travel to the wall behind me, and
having touched the wall behind me

I return DEEP within myself and I feel safe.

With my mind’s eye I travel to the wall to my right, and
having touched the wall to my right,

I return DEEP within myself and I feel safe.

With my mind’s eye I travel to the wall to my left, and
having touched the wall to my left,

I return DEEP within myself and I feel safe.

With my mind’s eye I travel to the ceiling high above my
head, and having touched the ceiling

high above my head, I return DEEP within myself and I
feel safe.

With my mind’s eye I travel to the floor beneath my feet,
and having touched the floor

beneath my feet, I return DEEP within myself and I feel
safe.

It took me ages to be able to do this in bed and I know
someone who had to get out of bed,

sit on the side of his bed; do his centring before
getting back into bed and sleeping.

Also, the distance to the same wall sometimes changes and
the flight of my paper plane changes.

If you are outside, just choose a tree to find your
‘wall’ and imagine how far up the nearest cloud is.

When in the garden you
might want to bring in the chakra colours; that is the colours of the rainbow

and those I remember by chanting King Richard Of York Gained Battle In Vain.

When in a meeting you might want to release your
tiredness. The fact that there are other people in the room makes no difference
as we each have our own space. But as you are calmer they noticeably become
calmer. Just wait for a future post to find this ‘magic’ aspect of centering!

Saturday, 23 November 2013

David
L. Katz, MD, MPH

Director, Yale
University Prevention Research Center

Health at an Impasse:

The Case for Getting Past Collusion

Collusion might reasonably be defined as
meeting the enemy and discovering it is both them, and us. In the case of
health- personal well-being and public health alike- exactly this sort of thing
is going on. It is way past time to take the way past these toxic impasses.

Let’s start with public health, and then get more personal. The
leading public health problems of our time are obesity and related chronic
diseases. This is well studied and thoroughly established. As bad as the
current situation is, with chronic diseases imposing an enormous burden in both
human and economic terms, things are projected to get far worse.Chronic diseases are
proliferating around the globe,affecting ever more people here in the U.S., and taking hold atever younger ages.
We are losing an enormous number of years from our lives, and an all but
incalculable amount of life from our years.

What makes this truly tragic is that it isalmost entirely preventable. We have known exactly what it takes to reduce the aggregate
burden of chronic disease by fully 80% for literal decades. The relevant
research is noteworthy for its power, clarity, consistency, and lack of
controversy. Instead of staring down the barrel of a figurative gun at a future
in which one in three of us is diabetic, we could readily be looking at a
future in which 90% of all diabetes is eliminated outright. There are few forks
in the road of life as flagrant as that.

But since we have known for decades that better use of our feet
(physical activity), forks (dietary pattern), and fingers (not holding
cigarettes) could transform public health, and have done relatively little with
the information- at least with regard to diet and physical activity- we are
squandering an incredible opportunity. We squander it by eating a diet in whichnearly 50% of calories come from certifiable “junk,”and in which we talk about the benefits of
exercise and then go ondisplacing every former use of our muscleswith schedules that preclude them, and new
technologies that do them for us.

We could blame it all on the food companies
that make the junk food, and the technology companies that keep inventing more
ways for us to be sedentary. But as noted, the enemy is both them, and us.

What’s the
collusion?We lettheir inventions become the mothers of our previously unrecognized
necessities. Nobody needed soft
drinks before they were invented; thirsty people did just fine with water. But
we sure seem to need them now, downing sugar measured in tonnage, an
astronomical number of calories, and spending fortunes for the privilege of
propagating our collective risk for obesity and diabetes. Rakes once seemed to
suffice, but now a wayward leaf clearly demands the revving engine of a power
blower. To say nothing of the need to play soccer on a screen using only our
thumbs, while an actual soccer ball sits unused in the yard. You get the idea.

Nobody is making us stay on the couch or eat
junk food- they are just selling stuff we keep buying.

Yes, it is true thatjunk food is willfully engineered to be addictive, but so are illicit drugs-and most of us
choose not to use them in the first place. We have no fundamental obligation to
call toaster pastries “breakfast,” French fries a snack, or to keep runnin’ on
Dunkin. We do have choices.

When we complain that food companies should make better food-
and they should- they counter that they make and sell what we buy and eat. It’s
a bit of judo and a bit of theater on their part, but it is also one part true.
If we only bought better food, they would stop making junk pretty quick. If we
want to transform our food supply into one that makes loving food that loves us
back the norm, we can’t just keep wagging a finger at Big, bad Food even as we
stock up on their concoctions.We need to share a taste for change- by showing we actually prefer to buy products that are good
for us. A process oftaste bud “rehab”is readily available
to us all to set just a cascade in motion.

As for personal health, the story is much the same. An 80% reduction
in the collective burden of chronic disease means that you, and I, have the
means available to slash our personal risk of ALL major chronic disease- heart
disease, cancer, stroke, diabetes, dementia- by that same 80%. It means that if
knowledge were power; if we used what we have long known- there are fully 8
chances in 10 that our loved ones who have been diagnosed with any of the
above, would not be.This is not about some remote, anonymous public. This is up close, and very personal. It’s
all about us,and the people we love.

But here, too, we tend to squander the
opportunity. While knowing just what it takes to lose weight and find health,
to add years to life and life to years, we turn again and again to
lose-weight-fast diets, and variations on the theme of false promises and
magical thinking.

Here, we could blame the fad diet authors,
hucksters, and other malefactors of the Military-Industrial establishment. But
again, the enemy is both them and us.

What’s the
collusion?We could, any time we
like, concede that quick fix diets cannot be a solution to the lifelong
challenge of weight control. We could acknowledge that going on diets that
leave our children behind in an age of epidemic childhood obesity is not only
fraught with the likelihood of failure, but isfundamentally irresponsible. Apparently, we are saying to our children: grow up and get
fat, then you, too, can try to sort it out for yourselves. As long as we keep
buying lotions, potions, and fad diets- the individuals and industries involved
will all too happily keep selling them.

What, then, is the way past the impasse?
Pretty straightforward, actually:

1) Apply
common sense more commonly

Reasonable, responsible people apply common sense to everything
that matters- money and mortgages; education and careers; pet care and vacation
planning. And yet, we turn it off and go into some kind of “trance of
gullibility” when promises about weight loss and health promotion come along.
We could stop, andapply common sense more commonly to health- which certainly belongs on the short list of
priorities we all respect and take seriously.

2) Get real

We know thatget-rich-quick schemes tend to be the stuff of sit-coms, not serious people. Serious people know that
worthwhile things generally take time and some actual effort. We need to
approach losing weight and finding health in the real world, not fantasyland.

3) Get
empowered to be responsible

The Spiderman movies famously served up the adage, “with great
power, comes great responsibility.” That implies a corollary we all too often
ignore:before we can take responsibility, we must be empowered. There is an empowering set of skills for
getting to health in spite of it all thatsuccessful experts apply to themselves. Such skills can be acquired, and applied, by anyone willing to
make the effort. Only those of who were empowered with the skill of literacycan take responsibility for all the reading and writing we need
to do throughout our lives; there can be no such responsibility in the absence
of ability. There is health literacy, too.There is a skill set for getting to health. We can go and get it.

4) See the
forest through the trees

We do not have epidemic obesity and chronic disease because of
any one food, nutrient, ingredient, chemical, or device. We live in a perfect
storm of obesigenic factors. Similarly, no active ingredient or silver bullet
will fix everything.We are unlikely to get out of the woods until we see the relevant forest
through the trees.

5) Take one
step

The journey of a thousand miles famously begins with one step.
The journey to health in most cases is substantially shorter than that, but
also begins with one step.Learn and apply a skillto sleep better, or manage stress, and you may find you have the
energy to be more active. Be more active by applying skills to fit fitness in, and
you may find you sleep better, or feel less stressed. Improve your stress,
sleep, and activity level- and you may suddenly find yourself prepared to start
improving your diet. Do that, and you may find you feel better and want to get
a bit more exercise. Rather than giving up foods you love, you could learn how
to TRADE up foods you love to better choices in the same category- better
chips, for instance- so that you keep loving the food, butthe food starts loving you back. In the process, you could rehabilitate your taste budsso one choice at a time, you actually come to prefer foods that
are better for you. We readily get caught up in a pattern where each thing that
conspires against our health- lack of sleep, excess stress, weight gain, poor
eating, lack of exercise- compounds the next, until the degenerating spiral
takes our quality of life right down the drain. This process can be reverse-engineered one step a time, so we are climbing a spiral staircase up to
the health and vitality we want, and deserve.

That’s it.

We could, I suppose, just go with the status quo. We could all
undergo more operations and take more drugs,like the statinswe heard this week
millions more of us need. We could let our kids get fatter and sicker at
younger ages than we, and let them undergo ever more surgery and take more
drugs, too. We could do that, at huge cost in both dollar and human terms.

But why would we?Lifestyle is more powerful medicinethan anything ever developed by a pharmaceutical company,
accessible to us all, stunningly free of side effects, safe enough for children
and octogenarians alike, under our control, suitable for everyone every day,
and requires no prescription. It is also the means to a truly luminous prize: a
better life. That’s what health is for- it makes living better. We could add
years to life, and life to years- not only for ourselves, but for those we love
as well. We could give this gift to our children and grandchildren.

It may seem as if what stops our progress to
health is unfixable. Just the opposite is true. If we initiate the right
process- take one step on the way past the impasses- then what would fix health
could very well be- unstoppable.

Shall we get started?

In his new book,DISEASE PROOF,
Dr. Katz lays out the skill set for lifelong health and weight control he and
his family use every day.DISEASE PROOFis available in
bookstores nationwide.

Thursday, 21 November 2013

Photo by M'reen . How many balances can you find in this photo taken at Ely UK

Analyse versus Feeling.

These thoughts and feelings were prompted by someone’s
Social Media comment.

I think my photo shows aspects of balance, skill, support
and wonder of growing.
M'reen Hunt

Firstly I need to define what I mean by Analyse and
Feeling,

that is I need to understand the (apparent ) difference
between the two from my perspective

and in doing that it may give me an insight into the
perspective of others..

I think (therefore I am?) that to analyse is to use your
head (as if it was not part of your whole being?)

That to analyse somehow makes you less able to ‘feel’ and
that to ‘feel’ enables you to empathize

with others at a deep level of
understanding and so are warmer and less threatening.

Why do I feel the need to understand my feelings about these
words?

Why do I think about my perception of these words?

The prior sentence came intuitively and the second needed
thinking about, but most likely one will appeal

to you and the other will feel
alien in the same way that for some the glass is half full or half empty.

However, had my last words in the preceding sentence been
Think then I’m sure that I would just

have easily used Think as opposed to
Feel.

Why do I need to analyse the energy behind the title
statement;

is it because of my experiences when I was twice challenged
in the past?

Firstly during Group Working tuition where we were part
of an Experiential group I was challenged for Thinking as opposed to Feeling .
At the time I was a student counsellor and my fellow Group Working students were
practicing counsellors.

Secondly when I was challenged because I have the ability
to order my thoughts / understanding about

a situation and that was not an
expected ability amongst the other Life Coaching students.

I felt Different and Confused that it was not expected
that some others were able to do the same as I.

Yet we find it easy to accept that someone can create
music, see energy or understand calculus.

Surely I need to understand my differences so that I can appreciate
my energetic of felt sense responses

and so be kinder or more empathic to
myself and to others?

How do I experience Analysis and how do I experience
Feeling?

To me Analysis is a process of thoughts that order
themselves into a hierarchy of understanding in my head.

To me Feeling is an energy awareness in, on or around my
physical body.

The leading statement of this article has an energetic
charge for me due to the challenges described

above and my response to feeling
Different and Confused.

All words have an energy or belief (belief being the
building block of emotion). There is undoubtedly

an emotional response to a
word in isolation or to a word with inflection or in context with others.

As part of an experiment In the 1980s a TV programme was
aired whereby they asked you to record

how many words appeared at the top of
the screen and how many were at the bottom.

There was no ambiguity for me as the words were
definitely at the top or bottom of the screen when,

in fact, the words had been
broadcast in the exact centre of the screen; it was my emotional response

to
the word that placed it in a negative or positive position. That and the fact
that the subconscious

had been instructed to respond.

Back to the two sentences:

To me Analysis is
a process of thoughts that order themselves into understanding in my head.

To me Feeling is
an energy awareness in, on or around my physical body.

To me Analysis is a process of thoughts that order
themselves into understanding in my head.

This means that the thought processes demand to be
ordered and understood to the best of

my current ability. This process often
leads to incorporating a ‘balance’ thought or to another awareness

or to a
connection previously not made.

If not released these thought s will continue to
circulate in my head until the process of writing and explaining all this to
myself provides that release or completes the Gestalt – the circle.

To me Feeling is an energy awareness in, on or around my
physical body.

This is equally strong and demanding but in a different
way as it doesn’t have words to describe it

because words are a function of the
modern brain.

These energy feelings of, “Ah, there you are” are like
the sun coming out from behind a cloud

as now they can be consciously
recognised, appreciated and which if appropriate can be released;

with generally
the opposite energy being welcomed back into my system as this is powerfully
completing.

Currently I’m studying a subject that is out of my
comfort zone and so challenges some of my beliefs,

it also taps into my
dyslexic tendencies and also the outcome of my study is important to me.

On occasions I’ve been aware of the energy of mild panic which
I’ve simply released

or I’ve been curious as to what that particular feeling
means to me before releasing .

I think that to trust your higher self / yourself / your magnificent
self- however you may describe that state and to just accept that you can
release that fear energy –and it will be OK is appropriate.

Sometimes I Think and Feel that it is important or
interesting to understand where the ‘panic’ comes from

to the best of my
ability; as understanding comes before acceptance which comes before release.

Some
people might use the word Forgiveness (of the self or of others) but I prefer
to use ‘release’

or the phrase “Letting go”.

P.S. I’ve noticed that if I’ve said that I don’t
necessarily agree fully with someone’s statement

on Social Media that my
disagreement has been ignored.

Why?

I wonder; is Social Media an act of self congratulatory
navel gazing?

Or am I being a typical Sagittarian and throwing a ball
into the conversation

just to see how it bounces?

The thought presented itself as, “how’s your navel?”

I had to respond. Ha, ha, ha, spot on, someone has the
job to do!

It’s an ‘inny’ by the way, and therefore I think inwardly,
I also feel.

We could garner millions for a study of navels.

Innies working out from their self observation. The
extreme inny being an autistic person.

Outies working from a world perspective in towards
themselves. Dash I forget the term and who coined it, the extreme outy not
having an inner life but accruing status and value from some other,

a job, organisation or quest in life.

There must be flatties, but I’ve not heard of them.
People who are balanced at some point in the dualities